What a day ... Six hours of standing half-stooped. Twenty-degree temperatures. Calves-deep snow. Chunks of ice bobbing past on the gray river.

None of this, though, visibly distracts McCormack or any of the parka-clad, binocular-carrying crowd gathered in the Poconos at Dingmans Ferry, Pike County. They've been seduced by a promise this stretch of river couldn't keep on a winter day just two generations ago: the sight of a bald eagle.

Back then, anyone who spent a January afternoon here looking for bald eagles might be labeled suspicious, if not deranged. In those days virtually no eagles wintered here. Today in these parts the eagle is a comparatively reliable sight. As many as 30 can be spotted here in the 72,000 acres of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area on a winter's day.

Their numbers have grown so significantly that along the upper reaches of the Delaware River, the park now counts the eagle among its staple attractions, scheduling "Eagle Watches" for winter Sundays.

By midafternoon last Sunday, McCormack, an auto parts salesman from Blairstown, N.J., claimed 25 sightings -- three golden eagles and 22 bald eagles. He spotted all of them from the boat ramp adjacent to the toll bridge at Dingman's Ferry.

According to Al Ambler, a bearded graduate student at nearby East Stroudsburg University who studies birds of prey, the park's boat ramps are the best opportunities for humans to approach the wary birds.

Since the eagles are used to seeing humans gather at the ramps, they're less disturbed by them. Sometimes the birds perch for hours above the parking lot, staring intently into the waters rushing past, looking for any fish swimming within a talon's reach of the surface, and, upon finding one, unfurling their seven-foot wingspan and gliding with silent grace toward their prey.

More often they're cautious of people, coming no closer than 1,500 feet -- a distance that requires some optical help such as McCormack's field scope to identify the white heads, white tail feathers, and sable brown torsos that distinguish them from the golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, and other raptors with which they share the river.

Ambler says the eagles, which summer in northern Canada, winter at the Water Gap because of its clean waters and wide band of forests -- increasingly scarce commodities in the eastern United States.

While the birds still struggle to find suitable habitat, the ban of their most lethal adversary, the pesticide DDT, and careful monitoring of their populations have enabled them to partially replenish themselves -- so much so that the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife is considering "delisting" them. In the eagles' case, "delisting" means changing their status from endangered to threatened, thereby decreasing their level of protection.

"It's a bad idea," says Ambler. "It takes generations to chart the habits of a species. We understand far too little about the eagle and have done far too little to protect its habitat to lower its level of protection."

Two more "Eagle Watches" are scheduled this winter. On Jan. 27 and Feb. 11, eagle researchers and park rangers will discuss their research and help visitors find eagles from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m at two locations: Dingman's Access, east of Route 209 between Milford and Bushkill, and at Smithfield Beach, just north of Shawnee on River Road. For more information, call (717) 588-2435.